Forced expulsion is not merely a procedural error in the deportation framework but an aggravated form of unlawful custody. Whereas wrongful detention cases ordinarily end with release, pushbacks combine deprivation of liberty with the risk of statelessness, family separation, and displacement across an international border. Victims frequently lose access to homes, livelihoods, medical care and community support structures. In Bangladesh, expelled individuals may face criminalisation as irregular entrants, creating harms that extend well beyond the moment of expulsion. These cumulative harms sharpen the constitutional injury under Article 21 and strengthen the argument that forced expulsion demands a heightened remedial response.
The constitutional framework analysed earlier establishes a clear principle: where the State causes unlawful detention or deprivation of liberty, compensation under Articles 21, 32 and 226 is available as a public law remedy. This principle does not depend on the geographical site where the unlawful detention ends. Forced expulsion, particularly when preceded by warrantless detention, denial of judicial scrutiny and summary removal across an international border, constitutes an aggravated form of unlawful custody and an actionable constitutional wrong.
The pattern of forcible expulsions documented in border districts of West Bengal and Assam therefore raises not only citizenship disputes but urgent remedial questions: whether victims of detention and expulsion are entitled to compensation, which harms are compensable, and how such victims can realistically access remedies given their removal from Indian territory and their socio-economic marginalisation.
